The IS-04Z1 is an intrinsically safe Android handset designed for Zone 1 and Zone 21, aimed at the solvent suites and powder rooms of the Irish pharmaceutical cluster, and at the refinery, gas terminal and alumina plant that make up the rest. It is pre-launch: certification is running now, and Irish teams can read the evidence and trial a unit while it does.
Launching Q4 2026 · ATEX 2014/34/EU certification programme in progress
ATEX
IECExATEX 2014/34/EU
NEC 500 Class I Div 1IP68Zone 1 / Zone 21
Android 16
Qualcomm SnapdragonIreland has one oil refinery, Irving Oil's plant at Whitegate in Cork Harbour, and one indigenous gas field, Corrib, landed at Bellanaboy in Mayo. Everything else that matters is chemistry at smaller scale and higher value. Cork Harbour alone holds active ingredient and biologics plants belonging to several of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world, the Shannon Estuary carries the biggest alumina refinery in Europe, and Dublin adds a second biopharma cluster around Grange Castle. Distilleries and dairy powder plants complete the picture and bring their own zones with them.
Operators and contractors such as Irving Oil, Aughinish Alumina and Pfizer need an explosion proof mobile phone they can carry into classified areas at Ringaskiddy, Whitegate and Little Island and Carrigaline. The IS-04Z1 is designed for Zone 1 and Zone 21 duty there.
The Irish test is not heat or dust storms. It is a solvent suite that gets wiped down between batches, a quality system that wants everything documented, and a lot of rain on the sites that are outdoors.
For evaluators in Ireland, the IS-04Z1 explosion proof mobile phone is designed around these points: Solvent atmospheres and the gas group; Wipe-down between batches; Powder rooms as well as solvent rooms; A configuration you can put in a change record; Remote terminals and lone working; A full shift on one charge.
The target marking is II 2 G Ex ib IIC T4. Group IIC sits above the groups that cover the ethanol, acetone, isopropanol and toluene handled in pharmaceutical production, and it also covers the hydrogen used in hydrogenation steps, so one device answers the whole solvent list rather than most of it.
A handset in a GMP area is cleaned far more often than a handset on a refinery. IP68 sealing and rugged build are the basis for a device that tolerates a routine of alcohol wipes and gowning without the seals or the screen coating giving up first.
Dust protection for Zone 21 belongs to the same certification programme as the gas marking. Dispensing, milling and drying areas, and the milk powder driers on the food side, are Zone 21 work, and they usually sit in the same building as the Zone 1 areas.
Android 16 supports EMM and MDM, so the camera, location services and the installed application list can be fixed centrally and evidenced. That is what turns a phone into a controlled item that quality can approve rather than an unmanaged device someone carried in.
At Bellanaboy, on the Shannon Estuary or on a jetty at night the connection matters more than the specification. 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and four-constellation GNSS keep a position and a line to the control room across sites where the next person may be a field away.
The 4,000 mAh cell is sized for a whole shift with the camera and a work order application open. There is no charging point inside a classified area, and in a gowned suite going out to find one costs a change of clothing as well as time.
ATEX is the whole product-side requirement, transposed by S.I. No. 230 of 2017, and nothing Irish follows it. Because documentation is already in English, the questions that decide an Irish purchase are different from the continental ones: change control, cleaning agents and how a device is qualified into a GMP area.
The product route is short and familiar. ATEX 2014/34/EU is transposed by S.I. No. 230 of 2017, so a notified body certificate, the CE marking and the EU declaration of conformity are the complete product-side requirement, and there is no separate Irish approval to obtain. The Health and Safety Authority is the market surveillance authority for this equipment as well as the occupational safety regulator, which means the same body reads the certificate and inspects the workplace. Radio conformity runs under the Radio Equipment Directive, with ComReg responsible for radio spectrum and equipment supervision. Because Ireland works in English, none of the translation questions that slow a purchase in continental Europe apply here, and the evaluation moves straight to the technical and quality questions.
The duties that decide what you actually buy belong to the employer, under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and Part 8 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, S.I. No. 299 of 2007, which transposes the ATEX workplace directive. Part 8 requires the hazardous area classification, the assessment of ignition sources and an explosion protection document naming the equipment selected for each zone. The Health and Safety Authority publishes its own guidance on Part 8 and inspects against it. On upper tier sites the Chemicals Act (COMAH) Regulations 2015 add the major accident regime, with the Authority as central competent authority. On pharmaceutical sites there is a second, parallel system that a supplier should expect: anything introduced into a manufacturing area also passes through GMP change control, and the paperwork that satisfies an inspector there is about specification, configuration and cleaning, not about zones.
Typical Zone 1 and Zone 21 duty for the IS-04Z1 explosion proof mobile phone in Ireland includes: Solvent charging in a Cork production suite; Moving between a suite and a plant room; Turnaround at Whitegate or a shift at Bellanaboy; Stills, warehouses and powder driers.
Charging a reactor from a drum puts an operator in a Zone 1 area with both hands occupied and a batch record to complete. A certified handset lets the reading, the photograph and the electronic signature happen at the point of work, instead of being written on a gowning-room notepad and typed up afterwards.
A Grange Castle or Ringaskiddy campus mixes classified process areas with utilities, solvent stores and tank farms in one walk. One device covering Zone 1 and Zone 21 and locked to an approved configuration lets an engineer cross those boundaries without swapping equipment or breaking the change record.
Ireland's only refinery and its only gas terminal both run with small permanent crews and contractor surges. A hazardous area handset enrolled in the site console keeps the permit, the isolation photograph and the sign-off in one system rather than in a folder that leaves with the contractor.
A distillery has spirit vapour in the still house and in the warehouse, and a dairy plant has powder in the drier and the blending hall. Both are classified areas staffed by people who are not carrying a radio and a phone and a camera, which is exactly the case for one device that does all three.
The device has not launched, so none of this needs a purchase order. The sequence below is built for a site where safety and quality both have to sign, which usually takes longer than the procurement itself.
Give us the zones, the gas group and temperature class from your explosion protection document, and tell us whether the device will go into a GMP area and what it will be cleaned with. Enquiries go to SAMS Mobile at info@sams-mobile.com.
You receive the specification, the target marking string and a written status for each certification in progress, which is enough for both the equipment selection reasoning and a draft change control record.
Evaluation units go to Irish operators and contractors under a trial agreement. A useful Irish trial covers gowning and cleaning, enrolment in your own console, the camera policy your site enforces, and a full shift on one charge.
On completion of certification, supply runs through an Irish or UK and Ireland distribution partner, or direct where a customer prefers it. Pre-launch pricing is quoted on request against a stated quantity and configuration.
Send your site, zone and gas group, and we will answer for your plant rather than in general.
Ask about Ireland →No. It is designed to ATEX 2014/34/EU for Zone 1 and Zone 21 and certification is in progress. Launch is planned for Q4 2026, and no unit is supplied for use in a classified area before the certificate covering that use exists.
There is no list price before launch. Pre-launch pricing is given against a defined quantity, configuration and support scope, and it follows the certificate rather than an order date. Evaluation units are issued under a trial agreement rather than sold, so a trial does not depend on agreeing a price first.
No. S.I. No. 230 of 2017 transposes ATEX 2014/34/EU, so a notified body certificate and the CE marking are the whole product-side requirement. The duties that follow are the employer's, under Part 8 of the General Application Regulations 2007, and the Health and Safety Authority is the body that reads both sides.
That is a site decision made through change control, and the honest answer is that we supply the inputs rather than the conclusion. What you get is the specification, the certified configuration, the enclosure and screen materials, and cleaning guidance, which is what a quality team needs to write and approve the change. The trial is the right place to prove the cleaning routine.
Group IIC is the target, and it sits above the groups covering the common pharmaceutical solvents, as well as covering hydrogen. Temperature class T4 is the other half of the answer, and both will be on the certificate. During evaluation the useful exercise is to check your own solvent list against the marking rather than against a category name.
Intrinsically safe. Flameproof, the Ex d concept, contains an explosion inside a heavy enclosure. Intrinsic safety, Ex ib, limits the energy in the circuit so ignition cannot start. For something carried through a gowned suite all shift, the Ex ib route is the one that produces a device anyone will actually use.
Through a named facility, because work on an intrinsically safe device has to be done by a recognised repairer or the certification lapses. A service arrangement covering Ireland and the UK is part of the launch programme, and the turnaround terms can be reviewed under a pre-launch agreement before they are published.
Yes, and that is the point of the pre-launch stage. You can take the datasheet and certificate schedule, draft the equipment selection entry, open a change control record and run a trial unit through a real week. What you cannot do is put an uncertified device into a classified area, and we will not supply one for that.
Tell us the site, the zone and gas group, and roughly how many handsets. The SAMS team replies by email with the datasheet and the certification schedule for Ireland. The IS-04Z1 is pre-launch and certification is in progress, so there is no list price yet; indicative pricing is issued in writing against a stated quantity and site.
We are looking for industrial and safety distributors who already supply the pharmaceutical cluster in Cork and Dublin, the Shannon Estuary plants and the food and drink sites, with the service capability Ex equipment requires. Tell us which accounts you serve and what repair capability you hold.
Go deeper with the IS-04Z1: explosion proof phone for Food, Drink and Distilling; explosion proof phone for Oil, Gas and Heavy Industry; explosion proof phone for Pharmaceuticals and Biopharma; explosion proof phone for Irving Oil; explosion proof phone for MSD; explosion proof phone for Pfizer; explosion proof phone for Vermilion Energy.
Buyers look for the IS-04Z1 in Ireland in different ways. Each guide below answers one buyer search honestly: what the term means, the route to buy, and where certification stands today.
